


Mild Soap and Water

by HK44



Series: Brokes, Pennsylvania [10]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Death, Drabble, Not really graphic death, and john has never had to experience this before so he's kinda freaking out right about now, and robert is somewhat insane when it comes to murder, because graphic is different for everyone, but still violence that should be mentioned, elizabeth is a stone cold badass, people die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 09:29:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4516647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HK44/pseuds/HK44
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s never seen her kill before.</p><p>He knows she has. She’s alluded to it before, through mouthfuls of ice cream curled up alone in the dark while blood splatters on the television screen and actors pretend to be in pain, making mutterings under her breath while Robert laughs and rolls his eyes in quiet agreement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mild Soap and Water

He’s never seen her kill before.

He knows she has. She’s alluded to it before, through mouthfuls of ice cream curled up alone in the dark while blood splatters on the television screen and actors pretend to be in pain, making mutterings under her breath while Robert laughs and rolls his eyes in quiet agreement.

But here, in supposed safety, all the bad things over and gone, he never expected to see her do it. He never expected her to have to do it.

Again.

For the one hundredth thirty-seventh time, a number Robert mutters under his breath, ducking under John’s arm, stepping around the body laid strewn out on the floor.

There’s a fire in her eyes and for a moment John vaguely wonders if he should run away, back through the door, before she turns her bloodstained fists on him.

A gaping hole sits flat out where the man’s heart should. She had quite literally ripped it out of his chest. It falls flat out of her hands and splatters in a bloody explosion on the tile and John’s heart beats faster as her eyes roll over and land on him.

She takes a step, cocks her head and-

“Lizzie, you here?” Robert says, eyes squinted as he struggles to find another pair of glasses in his jacket to replace the ones that broke during the invasion. “Liz?”

Her eyes blank out then close. A second goes by. She relaxes on to her back leg, eyes reopening. She fishes a pair of glasses out her inside jacket pocket. Robert takes them and pulls her arm outwards, twisting her thumb twice. She drops to her knees, drops her head, black curls drooping over her head as she breathes.

Robert puts on his glasses and turns, scratching the top of his head. “John. You okay? Do you wanna vomit?” He points to the dead body. “You can puke on him.”

John does want to vomit actually. He wants to vomit and run and scream and stay absolutely still right now but his heart is beating too fast and everything is so loud.

“Are you having a panic attack right now?” Robert asks patiently. “We could-”

Glass sprayed everywhere, cutting Robert off effectively as Elizabeth jerked up and shoved him straight into John. They both barrelled down to the ground, John’s head slamming hard against the tiled floor.

Elizabeth swirls around, grabbing some guy dressed in a black skin tight suit that shows off quite a lot of himself down there and throwing him through the wall, down seventeen stories to the painful end of the ground.

Instinctively, John rolls over, to protect Robert and bursts his body into flames, sweeping his arm out to knock of the people over. They let out a hard grunt but flip back up, swinging their leg hard down on his back. He yells and Robert cocks a pen onto his shoulder, pressing down on the back.

“Spy weapons are always necessary and always fun,” he mutters as the person jerks with a hundred thousand volts of electricity coursing through their body. John swears as someone new yanks him up by the collar.

He chokes and grabs their wrist, attempting and failing to pull the hand off as it clamps around his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Elizabeth fighting against two people in similarly thick trench coats, both trying to push her into each other’s coat. One of them shifts and the inside of the coat flashes a glimpse, swirling a reminder of the galaxy with its blinking stars and infinite darkness.

Robert is being left alone for the most part, not as dangerous as Elizabeth or John. He rolls over to a corner beside Elizabeth’s bed, probably trying to find more spy weapons from his clothes. “Just burn them!” he yells.

“Tha. In. Hu. Mane,” John chokes out, fingers losing their strength and grip, beginning to claw instead of pull.

“THIS IS WHY YOU WOULD’VE LOST THE WAR WITHOUT US, YOU BRITISH WIMP!” Robert screeches.

Just as black begins to edge into his vision, everything clears and he falls in a crumpled heap to the ground, heaving deep breaths. When he looks up, Robert is gripping the baseball bat he and Franky gave Elizabeth, durable enough to withstand her strength for when her abilities get outside of her concentration.

He’s also beating the crap out of the person who had been strangling John. Beating him with a wild manic gleam in his eyes, teeth tearing into his lip and splitting it open. And there’s something insane about the way his body arches, arm revolving over and over to slam the bat into the person’s head and body, just anywhere he can reach, his actions continuing even though the person is dead and gone.

Blood splatters on his face, in his hair, on his clothes, everywhere and Elizabeth yells out, kicking one into the wall as she grabs the other and hangs them out the window, still fighting and Robert’s there and John’s heartbeat increases, his need for candy drying his throat as Robert pulls back his arm and Elizabeth slips ever so slightly to the side, knowing and understanding and they’re gone, out through the window, plummeting.

John doesn’t tear his eyes away from the window as the two turn on the last one, moaning against the wall. He still flinches as he hears the pounding of Robert’s bat and Elizabeth’s fists and his body curls into itself, eyes trained on the window because it’s one thing to throw a person out a window down seventeen stories in self defense and by accident but it's a completely different thing to do that on purpose and knowingly.

“John?” Elizabeth voices rings in his ears and she’s close but doesn’t touch him, waving a bloodstained hand in front of his face. “John.”

“I think he’s broken,” Robert says. “Hey. How does a person clean a bat? Like do you just you a wood finish or like a scraper or-”

“Mild soap and water,” John whispers, eyes still focused on the window.

“Guess not.” Robert squats  in front of him. “I’m gonna close your eyes, John. Mostly because it's creepy how you’re just staring at one thing and I don’t think you’ve blinked since we threw that guy out the window and it’s really weird, no offense. Still, is it like a British thing or a Spanish thing? Because I don’t think it's normal to stare at one spot unendingly when people are trying to discuss things with you.”

Robert keeps rambling, his fingers reaching out but not yet touching John’s eyelids because Robert does nothing without explicit permission and he’s yet to ask for it, much less receive an answer from John whose brain keeps repeating, _‘Mild soap and water. Mild soap and water. Mild soap and water. Mild soap and water.’_

“So can I close your eyes, John?” Robert finally asks after three minutes of mindless blabber.

John makes a noise and jerks his body in an agreement. Robert’s fingers are wet and John’s repetition of _‘Mild soap and water. Mild soap and water’_ echoes louder and louder as the wet slides over his eyelids, dropping them.

Elizabeth’s voice is clear as she says, “John. I think you are having a panic attack. We are going to move you somewhere. Do you want a lot of space or a little?”

“L-lot,” John stutters, feeling himself shift as Elizabeth drapes an arm - _‘Mild soap and water. Mild soap anD WATER.’_ \- under his bum and heaves him upwards into a standing position before sweeping him into her arms, disney princess style.

“Okay,” she breathes. “Robert, the door. And call Amai to tell her about my room.” The door opens and John curls into Elizabeth a little bit more than he cares to admit. “It’s okay,” she murmurs. “Just breathe through your mouth.”

Her body is steady and she maneuvers around the room easily and there’s a nervous part of John’s brain that notices it and vaguely wonders how many times she’s done this with Robert, lifted him into her arms and carried out of a blood stained room, around bodies that littered the floor.

Robert mumbles, “One hundred and forty-two” with a hiccuping laugh and John’s brain cuts out into a screaming rendition of _‘MILD SOAP AND WATER! MILD SOAP AND WATER!’_ as Elizabeth carries him out the door and into the hallway.

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write some violence honestly.


End file.
